Games are an interesting artform. They get updated to grow and evolve over time, like us. I’ve been playing Minecraft since its alpha days, back when you couldn’t even stack food and The End dimension didn’t exist. I’ve mostly watched it grow up from afar, only dipping back in occasionally, but the reception to the new Minecraft update, Tricky Trials (or to give it its technical name, 1.21), has me itching to sink my teeth into it again. And I’m not the only one who’s happy.
There’s a lot to unpack in the new Minecraft update, released yesterday, Thursday June 13. The biggest addition to the survival game and is the new Trial Chambers. These are overworld structures that feature two new mobs, the breeze and the bogged. Clear them all and you get a key that unlocks a new block, the vault. These contain loot and goodies to reward you for your valiant efforts. Along with a litany of other additions, the Minecraft 1.21 update is so far proving a hit.
“The trial chambers seem like an actual fun challenge and a cool structure,” writes Minecraft player ‘GreenIkea’ on Reddit. Other Minecraft players reply, saying that they feel 1.21 is better than Minecraft 1.20. “It focuses on systems rather than content,” player ‘Lunagirlmagic’ writes, “like being able to ride through portals, the crafter, the copper bulb. It gives power to the player and the community to make things with the systems, rather than just another mob or block that doesn’t do anything dynamic.”
One of those items mentioned, the crafter, is a new addition, too. With it, you simply select a recipe, add stacks of the ingredients, and it pops out the finished product — as long as you power it with redstone, that is. This should make production far smoother in Minecraft. I’ve only recently started experimenting with iron farms and villager trading outposts, so this seems a little out of my league, but for those of you with massive industrial zones, the crafter is a game changer.
Perhaps the coolest thing you can do in the new Minecraft update is absolutely batter enemies with the new weapon, the mace. This thing gets increased damage if you swing it while you’re falling, and you can enchant it to make it send you skyward after a fall attack. Combine this with wind charges — dropped by breezes — that send you skyward and some feather falling boots and you’ll be raining death on unsuspecting mobs in no time. ‘8mrjames’ showed off their skills in a video where they take out a Wither in just five hits, calling it “probably one of the coolest things you can do in the new update.”
With the new update finally here, it’s time to hit the best Minecraft seeds. You’ll also want the very best Minecraft mods, to transform the game exactly how you like it during Tricky Trials.
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